


In the Bleak Midwinter

by dshep33



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst?, Black Plague, Lilith Rules Europe, Other, before canon, canon!verse, everyone is dying, there is no hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:40:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dshep33/pseuds/dshep33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As snow falls and the Plague sweeps across the land, one girl holds the power to save the village. But is it truly saved, if all those who walk are dead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Bleak Midwinter

The year was young and the land was cold, but still the plague drove on. Everyone in the village had hoped that the winter would freeze the shadow that choked the world back into the hell it crawled out of, but their hopes were dashed.

It had swallowed the entire country, infecting even the hierarchy. Even the arch-bishop. No one was free from its path.

No one except for one girl.

Those who didn't know her thought her a miracle, a blessing, a gift from God, an angel. Those who _did_ know her knew each name to be true. She was Wonderful. She was Grace. She was Kind.

And above all, she was healthy.

The village, once a large city, was now no more than fifty hovels that were scattered throughout the ruins of the feudalistic empire. Their only saving graces were the church, and the girl.

The church was a safe haven for the village. The citizens could go there and find peace amid the turmoil. They could ask for forgiveness from a vengeful God that had forgotten them amid the throes of his Wrath. They could seek guidance in the words of Father Grey, or peace in the footsteps of Mother Lupa. In the church there was safety. In the church there was health – originally. But when it became a hospital and more people died there than in their homes, they stopped going to church. To them, it was an obvious omen; that God had truly abandoned them.

They never stopped going to the girl, though. 

She could not get sick, but she could take other's sickness from them. She could heal, she could save, she could restore, and all in the name of God. While He had left the Father and the Mother, he had not left the Daughter. She was His, and He was hers.

As the previous year had lengthened and the cold forced people into their homes, even she was neglected more often than not. Now, the villagers had to fight a battle on two fronts. From great Boreas in the north, to the Scourge of Satan in the south, they were trapped. They were alone.

Every great once in a while, a dying man or woman would find their way to the Daughter's house, begging for renewal and revival. She would grant them their wish, if only to see them stop suffering. Oh, how she hated to see them suffer. Better to just let them die and be reborn.

Half of the fifty houses that had survived the Black Death had not. They were dead. And they were under  _Her_ command.

But they were in hiding. Waiting for the glorious day when She could breach the barrier of the church, and turn the town to ashes.

They gathered in secret every Sabbath, Her and her twenty-and-three families, whose eyes gleamed black and evil. They praised her because her eyes were white, her eyes were clear and clean and “holy”, or so the others would say.

Oh how very wrong they were.

She would speak to them, tell them that the time was fast approaching and that after this city, the next, then the capital, then the  _world_ . They have almost conquered the first of the great challenges they faced, and once they completed this task the others would come easier.

Two weeks later, the day arrived.

She had never stepped foot in a church before. She couldn't. It was holy, and she was not. 

But now she could. And now she did.

It was the Sabbath, as was custom for Her to gather her followers in mockery of the People of God. From this day forward, the world of men would silently hate that word.  _Sabbath_ . 

It was late in the evening, after the final Mass and the burying of the weekly dead, the time ripe for confessions. She had never gone to one before, but she knew the routine. Her victims had gone and she had wrested the information from their screaming minds as she did their throats from their agonized bodies.

Now she sat in the confession box, her face veiled in heavy black and her body wrapped in a mourner's gown. The priest sat in the booth beside her, and she wept.

He thought for sorrow, she knew for joy.

“ What is your name?”

“Lilith, Father.”

“Why have you come, dear child? What do you need to confess before God and his Son?” The Father intoned, his voice as silken as velvet but his spirit as brazen as a wolf's.

“Father, Father, I have come to repent of my sins.” She cried into her handkerchief, more to hide her hidden laughter.

“What sins, sweet daughter?” He pleaded to know, but cared not at all.

“Father, Father, I've killed a man.”

He hesitates, then continues. “Who? Who have you slain?”

And then she was behind him, whispering as she drew her blade across his strong, soft chin “You... Father.”

 


End file.
